Jerry Craft pulled a Jackie Robinson -- in reverse

In 1947, Branch Rickey, the bible-thumping genius who ran the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed Jackie Robinson to a contract, and the color line in baseball was broken. Well, not quite.

Twelve years later, in 1959, Jerry David Craft, a white youth, got a phone call at his home in Jacksboro, Texas, from a man he did not know. The stranger, who actually was one Carl Sedberry Jr., asked if Jerry Craft would pitch for his team, the Wichita Stars, one of the many independent semi-pro teams in the segregated Lone Star state.

Jerry Craft had been a winning pitcher in high school and college, as well as a football player, and Sedberry said his Wichita Stars needed a pitcher for the new season. When he also offered Jerry Craft $75 a game, Jerry leaped to accept. It was a handsome amount in those days for a young fellow — who would rather play baseball than work on his father’s ranch.

He agreed, that is, to play even before he learned what kind of team the stranger was asking him to play for. The big surprise was up ahead.

To seal the deal, they agreed to meet at the Wichita Stars’ home field. But when Jerry Craft showed up, he was stunned to find what awaited him.

“I didn’t mention it,” Sedberry said, “because if I told you we were a black baseball team, you wouldn’t want to play with us. Does it make any difference?”

“I’m not sure,” Jerry admitted.

“Well, are you prejudiced?” Sedberry asked.

“I don’t think so,” Jerry replied.

“Did you ever think of playing for a black baseball team?” asked Sedberry.

“I’ve never even seen a black baseball team until today,” Jerry Craft said, looking about him.

Of course, neither Jerry Craft nor Sedberry could realistically expect that a black team and a white man would accept each other as teammates in 1959 Texas. Yet, even as both remained wary of each other, Jerry Craft and Sedberry continued negotiating at that first meeting.

While a sea of black faces looked on anxiously from the stands, awaiting the start of a game, the talk progressed until Jerry Craft suddenly blurted out, yes, he would pitch for the black Wichita Stars.

What followed were polite, delicate introductions between Jerry Craft and his new teammates.

In their dramatic moment, they had created in 1959 Texas a sort of “Jackie Robinson in Reverse,” a white player hired by a black team.

It hadn’t been easy for Jackie Robinson, as we know, and it wasn’t going to be easy for Jerry David Craft, either.

It took the white man and his black teammates the better part of the two-year association that followed to bond with each other. For Jerry Craft, it was twice as hard. On one hand, he traveled in the same segregated world of the black man, which meant cheap hotels, restricted eateries and toilets, all the outrages of racism. At the same time, Jerry Craft also was despised by white folks who saw him associating with blacks — a white man pitching for an all-black team.

That Jerry Craft himself didn’t quit the sewer of prejudice became a ringing tribute to the unflinching courage of a white man in a black man’s enclave, much as it was Jackie Robinson’s courage in a white man’s ballpark.

As Craft relates in his book “Our White Boy.” (Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock, Texas), it was a gripping two seasons of baseball during which Craft and his teammates struggled to respect, and maybe even like, each other. It wasn’t easy or quick. The segregated teammates had obvious reason to doubt their star pitcher’s true feelings. After all, he was white. Segregation died hard in Texas, as it did elsewhere, for that matter, well after Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson got together.

That Craft and his teammates finally reached racial harmony in an era of racial hatred makes their experience heroic. Reflects Jerry Craft today:

“Anyone who grew up in that segregated civil rights era will recognize the unusual circumstances of black and white athletes bonding together at that time. Eventually, trust, loyalty, friendship and understanding extended beyond the diamond and lasted years after our playing days had ended.”

The relationship had become so close that Craft never even got the agreed $75 a game as the team’s star pitcher. Matter of fact, he wasn’t paid a cent. The Wichita Stars were too poor to pay anyone.

Craft, now 73, has become today a major civil and political leader in his home state. After leaving the family ranch, he began a long career of public service. He has been a scoutmaster, Little League coach, president of the Jacksboro school district, mayor of Jacksboro, chairman of two banks, owner of two ranches and a church leader.
How he deals with folks around him today reflects the harmony he and his black teammates achieved in those critical days before civil rights arrived. It’s many years later, but his story is a striking footnote in history. You have to wonder whether a film is not far behind.

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The wisdom of John Wooden, Basketball’s Coach:

“Read books. You’ll never learn a thing that you didn’t learn from someone else.”